Wednesday, December 3, 2008

She is one untiring lady, taking time to visit all our food blogs, befriending us, organizing and hosting lots of foodie events. Of course I already knew of Kopiaste, and would visit (lurk?) her site from time to time. I would also participate in her food events. But I got to really know her when I joined the World Food Event, where she is one of the brains and organizers, along with Val of More Than Burnt Toast and Giz of Equal Opportunity Kitchen. This is one of the food blogging world's more worthier events as it aims to bring awareness to our readers about the problem of hunger in the world. Now, this monthly food event has now expanded into Bloggeraid -- Because We Can Help. This is a social network of bloggers uniting to aid in the allevation of hunger. We're not just going to talk about hunger but actually do something about it!!!

Because World Food Programme of the United Nations and BloggerAid and what we can do to help is a worthy topic to discuss, I will write a separate post about it. :)

When I hosted the Grow Your Own food event featuring dishes with ingredients we have grown or raised ourselves, Ivy even in the middle of her vacation, sent over this delicious looking home-raised chicken dish with ingredients that sounds flavorful. Isn't that soooo very nice of her? What was exciting was that I had all the ingredients immediately on hand! (Well, except the cherry brandy, which Ivy says is optional) I was on my way to making my first Greek dish!

I basically stuck to her original recipe except that my dish does not have cherry brandy. I used white chicken instead of organically-raised chicken making the cooking time is shorter. I used home-made whole wheat pasta instead of the chilopetes pasta. (Please see my post on how to make home made pasta to learn more.) And before adding in the onions for sauteing, I added some slices of fresh ginger. I suppose that is just the Chinese thing to do. We always saute our chicken (and seafood) dishes with ginger. :)

1. Boil the homemade pasta in water for around 2 minutes or until al-dente. Drain and set aside.

2. Saute the ginger in the olive oil until fragrant. Add in the garlic and onions, and saute until fragrant but not burnt.

3. Add in the chicken pieces. Stir fry for a while until meat changes color. Add in the wine. Let boil. Wait for a while until the alcohol evaporates. Add in the tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, bay leaf and cinnamon bark.

4. Let boil and simmer for around 15 to 20 minutes until meat is soft and sauce has thickened. Adjust seasoning to taste.

5. Remove the chicken meat with a slotted spoon reserving the sauce in the pan. Toss in the pasta to coat the noodles with the sauce.

6. Arrange pasta in individual serving plates. Top with chicken pieces. Top with grated parmesan cheese (as I do nor have the Greek myzithra cheese :)

The chicken may not look pretty (I remove the chicken skin for health reasons), but I promise, this is one of the more flavorful chicken dish we have tasted. Actually, this dish tasted so similar to our very own chicken adobo (where we use rice vinegar instead of wine in stewing). It is salty, sweet, fragrant, flavorful at the same time. It is also amazing to discover that we have similar tasting dishes even if we are halfway across the globe!

Sharing this Greek-inspired dish with the Bookmarked Recipes community, headed and hosted by Ruth of Ruth's Kitchen Experiments. This is a weekly food event where anyone from anywhere can blog about a recipe they had bookmarked from a cook book, food magazine, food blog, food website, from TV etc. To see last week's delicious dishes, please click here.

12 comments:

I am glad to liked it Ning. I have never cooked with fresh ginger but why non try it? I still have a whole rooster left in my deep freezer. Thanks very much for participating in BloggerAids event and helping bring awareness to your readers.